e Washington wire-puller,
surveying the Fastburg wire-puller with bland superiority, much as the
city mouse may have surveyed the country mouse.

"Two capitals," responded Dicker, withdrawing his nervous glance from
the wart, and locking his hands over one knee to quiet their trembling.

Mr. Pullwool, having the Old Harry in him, and being consequently full
of all malice and subtlety, perceived at once the full scope and force
of the explanation.

"I see," he said, dropping gently back into his arm-chair, with the
plethoric, soft movement of a subsiding pillow. The puckers of his
cumbrous eyelids drew a little closer together; his bilious eyes peered
out cautiously between them, like sallow assassins watching through
curtained windows; for a minute or so he kept up what might without
hyperbole be called a devil of a thinking.

"I've got it," he broke out at last. "Dicker, I want you to bring in a
bill to make Fastburg the only capital."

"What is the use?" asked the legislator, looking more disconsolate,
more hopeless than ever. "Slowburg will oppose it and beat it."

"Never you mind," persisted Mr. Pullwool. "You bring in your little
bill and stand up for it like a man. There's money in it. You don't see
it? Well, I do; I'm used to seeing money in things; and in this case I
see it plain. As sure as whiskey is whiskey, there's money in it."

Mr. Pullwool's usually dull and, so to speak, extinct countenance was
fairly alight and aflame with exultation. It was almost a wonder that
his tallowy person did not gutter beneath the blaze, like an over-fat
candle under the flaring of a wick too large for it.

"Well, I'll bring in the bill," agreed Mr. Dicker, catching the
enthusiasm of his counsellor and shaking off his lethargy. He perceived
a dim promise of fees, and at the sight his load of despondency dropped
away from him, as Christian's burden loosened in presence of the cross.
He looked a little like the confident, resolute Tom Dicker, who twenty
years before had graduated from college the brightest, bravest, most
eloquent fellow in his class, and the one who seemed to have before him
the finest future.

"Snacks!" said Mr. Pullwool.

At this brazen word Mr. Dicker's countenance fell again; he was ashamed
to talk so frankly about plundering his fellow-citizens; "a little
grain of conscience turned him sour."

"I will take pay for whatever I can do as a lawyer," he stammered.

"Get out!" laughed the Satanic on